Friday, January 18, 2013

Federal
officials think gray wolves, similar to this one, may migrate into
areas throughout New Mexico in the future, including the Carson National
Forest in the northern part of the state. That forest stretches into
western Colfax County. U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service photo

By Todd Wildermuth, Editor

• Fri, Jan 18, 2013

Colfax
County officials plan to gather public input at a hearing Tuesday and
then consider if they want to take any action regarding the federal
government’s effort to establish a management plan that would dictate
how gray wolves would be handled should they migrate into this area.

Unlike
a project 14 years ago when the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service released
11 Mexican gray wolves to try to reintroduce the species into southwest
New Mexico and southeast Arizona, the agency is currently developing a
plan that “does not address the release or reintroduction of wolves, but
rather the management of wolves that naturally disperse into, or
recolonize” portions of Arizona, New Mexico and western Texas, areas
where they are listed as an endangered species.

The goal of the
Southwestern Gray Wolf Management Plan, according to the current draft,
“is to describe various management options and develop an appropriate
strategy to conserve and enhance the survival and propagation of the
gray wolf.”

Among the objectives listed in the plan is to
“provide the means necessary to respond to wolf conflicts with humans.”
Those means would include “aversive conditioning, trapping, darting,
translocation, and removal associated with wolf nuisance scenarios” and
“depredations,” which are wolf attacks on livestock or other animals.

It
is the potential damage to livestock that highlighted the county
commission’s decision in 2000 to adopt a resolution opposing the
reintroduction of wolves in Colfax County. In 2008, the commission
passed an ordinance stating a similar position and making it a crime in
the county to import predatory wolves.

The ordinance was designed
to be what county officials and area ranchers called a “strong
statement” against having wolves re-established in the county. The
ordinance’s enforcement potential, though, would likely be limited or
powerless against federal decisions and actions.

The Mexican
government released wolves in central and northern Mexico in 2011 and
2012, prompting the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service to speculate that
those “wolves may naturally disperse” into Southwestern states. In
addition, the agency says wolves could also come to New Mexico and
neighboring states from the northern Rocky Mountains where earlier wolf
reintroduction projects have taken place.

The Southwestern Gray
Wolf Management Plan is being developed in response to the possibility
that new gray wolves — including the subspecies Mexican gray wolf — may
show up in many parts of New Mexico, Arizona and west Texas in the
future.

The plan establishes three “management zones” across the
trio of states, with Zone 1 including northern New Mexico. Within that
zone is the Carson National Forest that extends into western Colfax
County. According to the plan, Fish and Wildlife officials have labeled
much of the western side of Colfax County as a “potential natural
recolonization area” for the gray wolf.

Being listed as
endangered in the Southwest “requires that wolves be managed to achieve
recovery so that it can eventually be removed from the endangered
species list,” the plan says.

However, the county’s 2008
ordinance says the livestock industry is “vital” to the county and the
release of certain predators, such as the wolf, into the county will
have a “negative impact” on that industry and the county’s economy. The
ordinance names as predators that may not be brought into the county
several varieties of wolves, as well as the brown bear, grizzly bear,
the lynx and the jaguar.

The Fish and Wildlife plan indicates
that from among any wolves that migrate to new areas of New Mexico,
Arizona and west Texas, the ones that exhibit the most desirable
behavior, as determined by wildlife officials, will be “the building
blocks of the population in these areas. These wolves should cause
little or no conflict with people. Animals that habitually kill cattle
or interact near human residences are not desirable for use in
establishing or enhancing wolf populations. Therefore, wolves that are
chronic problem wolves and either consistently direct their hunting
behavior toward livestock or are attracted to human residences may be
non-lethally removed from the population if their behavior warrants such
action.”

The county’s public hearing on the federal wolf
management plan is to take place at the commission’s Tuesday meeting
that begins at 9 a.m. in the county building at 200 N. Third St. in
Raton.

A link to the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service’s
Southwestern Gray Wolf Management Plan is found on the main page of
Colfax County’s website at www.co.colfax.nm.us.

The film offers an abbreviated history of the relationship between wolves and people—told from the wolf’s perspective—from a time when they coexisted to an era in which people began to fear and exterminate the wolves.

The return of wolves to the northern Rocky Mountains has been called one of America’s greatest conservation stories. But wolves are facing new attacks by members of Congress who are gunning to remove Endangered Species Act protections before the species has recovered.

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Inescapably, the realization was being borne in upon my preconditioned mind that the centuries-old and universally accepted human concept of wolf character was a palpable lie... From this hour onward, I would go open-minded into the lupine world and learn to see and know the wolves, not for what they were supposed to be, but for what they actually were.

-Farley Mowat, Never Cry Wolf

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“If you look into the eyes of a wild wolf, there is something there more powerful than many humans can accept.” – Suzanne Stone